I shouldn't need to post links, they're everywhere. But I love The Guardian so you can read it there, or anywhere.

Highlights from the first round:

- Medvedev is Robin to Putin's Batman. The jokes write themselves.
- Burloscolli ought to spend less time partying, more time trying to govern Italy.
- Saudi Arabia tries to put the spurs to america to bomb Iran, who knew?
- The King of Jordan stating that a two-state solution is the only way is a secret in America.

Among scores of disclosures that are likely to cause uproar, the cables detail:

• Grave fears in Washington and London over the security of Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme, with officials warning that as the country faces economic collapse, government employees could smuggle out enough nuclear material for terrorists to build a bomb.

• Inappropriate remarks by Prince Andrew about a UK law enforcement agency and a foreign country.

• Suspicions of corruption in the Afghan government, with one cable alleging that vice-president Zia Massoud was carrying $52m in cash when he was stopped during a visit to the United Arab Emirates. Massoud denies taking money out of Afghanistan.

• How the hacker attacks which forced Google to quit China in January were orchestrated by a senior member of the Politburo who typed his own name into the global version of the search engine and found articles criticising him personally.

• Allegations that Russia and its intelligence agencies are using mafia bosses to carry out criminal operations, with one cable reporting that the relationship is so close that the country has become a "virtual mafia state".

• The extraordinarily close relationship between Vladimir Putin, the Russian prime minister, and Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister, which is causing intense US suspicion. Cables detail allegations of "lavish gifts", lucrative energy contracts and the use by Berlusconi of a "shadowy" Russian-speaking Italiango-between.

• Devastating criticism of the UK's military operations in Afghanistan by US commanders, the Afghan president and local officials in Helmand. The dispatches reveal particular contempt for the failure to impose security around Sangin – the town which has claimed more British lives than any other in the country.

The US has particularly intimate dealings with Britain, and some of the dispatches from the London embassy in Grosvenor Square will make uncomfortable reading in Whitehall and Westminster. They range from political criticisms of David Cameron to requests for specific intelligence about individual MPs.

The cables contain specific allegations of corruption, as well as harsh criticism by US embassy staff of their host governments, from Caribbean islands to China and Russia. The material includes a reference to Putin as an "alpha-dog" and Hamid Karzai as being "driven by paranoia", while Angela Merkel allegedly "avoids risk and is rarely creative". There is also a comparison between Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Adolf Hitler.

The cables names Saudi donors as the biggest financiers of terror groups, and provide an extraordinarily detailed account of an agreement between Washington and Yemen to cover up the use of US planes to bomb al-Qaida targets. One cable records that during a meeting in January with General David Petraeus, then US commander in the Middle East, Yemeni president Abdullah Saleh said: "We'll continue saying they are our bombs, not yours."

_________________Ironically, Halen's one of the few people here I wouldn't worry about terrifying my friends and family. In my head he ends every real life conversation stroking his chin and saying, "well yes, that sounds reasonable."

to be brutally honest, the only thing on that list that surprises me is that a senior chinese politburo member was sufficiently computer-savvy to search for his own name on google, and then organize a hacker attack. i thought those guys were all, like, 150 years old.

i mean, we can all pretend to be shocked that it's out in the open, but is there anything really earthshakingly new?_________________aka: neverscared!

... riiiight. Shady deals don't present a clear and/or present danger to the united states, which reserves the right to do as it pleases, internationally.
Then again, I guess they're taking this tone to suppress any suggestion of a debate about the validity of current military missions. So far it seems to be successful.

I'm also still curious why an australian living in sweden(?) should care about US law. It's really very strange to see how all these press releases approach it as a US matter rather than an international one, to be dealt with under US law and judged by US values. It suggests to me that internally these institutions act as if the US rules the world, their spokespeople carry this tone so naturally that I can only assume they've matured professionally in a climate where this view of rightful US supremacy is taken for granted.

Wikileaks isn't the one leaking the documents, though. They're just publishing what's leaked already, kind of like a newspaper.

Umm, I think you're wrong.

Wikileaks got the info from "a disenchanted, low-level Army intelligence analyst" and then prepared to publish the information. A part of the preparation was letting news organizations see the information so as to maximize the publicity of the leaks. The news outlets are not allowed to post details before Wikileaks' preordained release date._________________Scire aliquid laus est, pudor est non discere velle
"It is laudable to know something, it is disgraceful to not want to learn"
~Seneca

They're only "classified" inside the US.
They all concern international matters.
As far as any international "rules" exist or apply, they often show the US to be in violation of those rules.

Seems like an international matter to me

so it's no longer US government property once it concerns international affairs?

i mean, i can't say i feel sorry for them, but it's rather strange to suggest that the US government is being unreasonable in treating the release of US government property and US government information as a matter concerning the US government

The rub is more the implication that he should be subjected in accordance to US law.

And frankly, yes, it's not. It's a matter of jurisdiction. When you're outside US territory, you cannot be subjected to US law. Besides, the cat's out of the bag and once out it concerns everyone. Hence, international.